An Upgraded No-Contract Cell Phone Plan from Walmart Family Mobile: Is it Worth It?

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, Walmart Family Mobile. All opinions are mine alone. #DataAndAMovie #CollectiveBias

Over the past year, we’ve shared our excitement for no-contract mobile phone plans that allow you to painlessly sign up for a monthly service, generally pay less than you would with those big companies, all the while giving you the flexibility to upgrade to a new plan or service without all those termination fees and all the other hassle that comes with it (ahem, the no contract part :)). Well, we wanted to share a new mobile plan that upgraded us from our current 3G service to 4G LTE, increasing our prior data by 4 times over, and giving our family a free movie night each month – all for about $10 more per month.

This plan is the Walmart Family Mobile PLUS plan, featuring Unlimited Talk and Text which includes up to 10GB of 4G LTE data. On top of this, each month you use the service, you receive a free movie on VUDU ($7 value).

Don’t get me wrong, our prior no contract phone truly served us well. We loved having the unlimited talk and text (just like this plan has – nothing lost there). But what we really love with this new plan from Walmart Family Mobile is all the extra data (10GB – four times that of the current 2.5GB we used to have) and much, much faster at that (4G LTE is up to 10 times faster than our prior 3G service). And this comes at a perfect time in our family’s lives.

This year has been truly amazing. We have been traveling more this year than we have in the past with different business ventures we have been pursuing (remember we always encourage you to maximize your income – don’t forget to check our Over 100 Ways to Earn Extra Income). And even as I write this article, we are traveling back from our current venture down to Nevada with a fun stop in Zion National Park; we love to mix business and pleasure as it allows us to share the beauty of the creation with our children while enjoying some much needed time as a family.

But all this extra travel this has made keeping in touch with our extended family that much more difficult and even that much more important. Take for example the amazing scenery we have just enjoyed (see the video above – taken with our LG Leon LTE smartphone). The kids really wanted to share this with grandma and grandpa. In the past (with our prior plan with “limited” data) there would have been no way we could have uploaded and shared videos and images from our trip because we simply just did not have enough data (not to mention how slow it would be to send/upload). But now, with 4 times the data (a huge upgrade for us) combined with the faster service, it has made staying in touch more realistic and affordable for our family.

So what’s the details of this plan? As we shared above, you get the unlimited talk and text. You get the 10GB of 4G LTE data. And in addition, you get a free movie on VUDU each month (a $7 value) which means we can enjoy a free family night, usually watching at home on our Roku (remember we shared why we own a Roku before) all for $49.88 per month.

Right now with tax season upon us could make it a perfect time to make the switch. With tax refunds (for many) on their way, buying a new phone (our LG Leon LTE Smartphone was only $49.82 – rolled back from $99.82) plus purchasing the required $25 Starter Kit can be a bit easier solution for those wanting to make the same upgrade. In fact, the Walmart associate that helped us even let us know that many current T-Mobile phones or unlocked phones could even be used – so if you have one then your cost to switch could be even less, just requiring the $25 Starter Kit; we would encourage you to talk to an associate in your local store to see if your phone might qualify.

It was too easy to make the switch. The easiest tip is to go into your local Walmart (alternatively you can go online) and find the Walmart Family Mobile section (generally in the electronics department) just like we did (here’s what it looked like in our store):

You can then either go home and use the instructions on the Starter Kit to set it up yourself or have the expert Walmart associate help guide you step-by-step through the whole process. If you ask our opinion, having that expert assist you through the whole process is the best recommendation as there are apparently potential snags that can happen to some customers when you set it up yourself (like what happened to ours – something about the phone not connecting to the correct Access Point Name (APN)) exactly as it should have. When we went into our local Walmart, however, they got us set right up and everything has worked perfectly since!

We wanted to share some of the pictures we took with our new phone even just this weekend. We hope you enjoy the beauty of Zion National Park and see just a small reason why we wanted to upgrade to this new plan. Can you imagine having to choose from these photos which ones to send to grandma and grandpa. LOL!

If you plan to make the upgrade in your data, what would you use the data for? Feel free to leave a comment below to share with all of us.

Our NEW LG Leo LTE Smartphone that we only paid $49.82 – rolled back from $99.82!

All prices for phones and plans included in this post are accurate as of the date of posting; however, these prices are subject to change. Please refer to http://cbi.as/2-ovk or your local Walmart for current pricing.

Comments

Great info & pics, thank you! Another plan which is exclusive to Walmart is Total Wireless. My Mom & I have been on it for almost a year and it has been great. Various choices of minute & data plans are available, but we are using $35/mo for 2GB data or $60/mo for 5GB data you can share with someone.

Thank you for all your great information posts, you have helped me so much.

Hi Cherie, Thank you for your comment! That’s actually the other option we’ve talked about before too! It’s a good one if you don’t need as much data and speed. Both are a great value for what they are offering. At least we think so in our frugal opinion. 🙂